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Game
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
A set of experiments for learning the values of chess pieces is described for the popular chess variants Crazyhouse Chess, Suicide Chess, and Atomic Chess. We follow an established methodology that relies on reinforcement learning from self-games. We attempt to learn piece values and the piece-square tables for three chess variants. The piece values arrived at, are quite different from those of standard chess, and in several ways surprising, but they generally outperform the values that have been previously used in the literature, and in the implementations of computer players for these games. The results also underline the practical importance of piece-square tables for tactical variants of the game.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
The study extends research on the Proteus effect by demonstrating that avatars can prime negative attitudes and cognition in desktop virtual settings. Experiment 1 shows that, after virtual group discussions, participants using black-cloaked avatars developed more aggressive intentions and attitudes but less group cohesion than those using white-cloaked avatars. In Experiment 2, individual participants using a Ku Klux Klan (KKK)-associated avatar created more aggressive Thematic Apperception Test stories in comparison to a control group. Participants using the KKK avatar also wrote less affiliative stories in comparison to those employing avatars dressed as doctors. Overall, the resulting pattern of activation of negative thoughts (i.e., aggression) coupled with the inhibition of inconsistent thoughts (i.e., cohesion, affiliation) is consistent with principles of current priming models and provides initial evidence for automatic cognitive priming in virtual settings.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
While many reports espouse the potential impact that 3-D virtual worlds are expected to have on teaching and learning in higher education in a few years, there are few empirical studies that inform instructional design and learning assessment in virtual worlds. This study explores the nature and process of learning in Second Life in a graduate interdisciplinary communication course in fall 2007. Literature suggests that 3-D virtual worlds can be well suited for experiential learning environments. In this study, the actual instructional effectiveness of Second Life as an experiential learning environment for interdisciplinary communication is empirically examined using mixed research methods of journal content analysis, surveys, focus group, and virtual world snapshots and video. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
This paper presents a brief review of current playability and game usability models. This leads to the conception of a high-level game usability framework model that integrates current usability approaches in game industry and game research.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Researching experiential phenomena is a challenging undertaking, given the sheer variety of experiences that are described by gamers and missing a formal taxonomy: flow, immersion, boredom, excitement, challenge, and fun. These informal terms require scientific explanation, which amounts to providing measurable criteria for different experiential states. This paper reports the results of an experimental psychophysiological study investigating different traits of gameplay experience using subjective and objective measures. Participants played three Half-Life 2 game modifications while being measured with electroencephalography, electrocardiography, electromyography, galvanic skin response and eye tracking equipment. In addition, questionnaire responses were collected after each play session. A level designed for combat-oriented flow experience demonstrated measurable high-arousal positive affect emotions. The positive correlation between subjective and objective indicators of gameplay experience shows the great potential of the method presented here for providing real-time emotional profiles of gameplay that may be correlated with self-reported subjective descriptions.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Schema theory provides a foundation for the analysis of game play patterns created by players during their interaction with a game. Schema models derived from the analysis of play provide a rich explanatory framework for the cognitive processes underlying game play, as well as detailed hypotheses for the hierarchical structure of pleasures and rewards motivating players. Game engagement is accounted for as a process of schema selection or development, while immersion is explained in terms of levels of attentional demand in schema execution. However, schemas may not only be used to describe play, but might be used actively as cognitive models within a game engine. Predesigned schema models are knowledge representations constituting anticipated or desired learned cognitive outcomes of play. Automated analysis of player schemas and comparison with predesigned target schemas can provide a foundation for a game engine adapting or tuning game mechanics to achieve specific effects of engagement, immersion, and cognitive skill acquisition by players. Hence, schema models may enhance the play experience as well as provide a foundation for achieving explicitly represented pedagogical or therapeutic functions of games.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Recent theorizing around games and notions of play has drawn from a pool of mid-20th century scholars including such notables as Johann Huizinga, Gregory Bateson, Roger Caillois and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Through his articulation of the concept of language as a type of game, Wittgenstein has been both adopted and critiqued for purposes of circumscribing what are now commonly held as the necessary constituents of games including their systemic nature and the acquiescence of their participants to an agreed-upon rule structure: a set of rules which Wittgenstein likens to the ‘grammar’ of language (Salen and Zimmerman, 2001;Suits, 1978; Juul, 2005; Wittgenstein, 1953; Finch, 2001; Brenner, 1999).
Although thus far Wittgenstein has served as a pillar of 20th and 21st century game theory canon, this paper adopts Wittgenstein’s notion of language-games not for purposes of examining games, but for purposes of examining the design of games. The pursuit of this paper is to utilize Wittgenstein’s lens of the language-game to investigate what it is that informs and consequently shapes and reinforces game design epistemologies in an attempt to encourage a reflexivity about the design practices behind the games we create.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Little is known about the underlying neural processes of playing computer/video games, despite the high prevalence of its gaming behavior, especially in males. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study contrasting a space-infringement game with a control task, males showed greater activation and functional connectivity compared to females in the mesocorticolimbic system. These findings may be attributable to higher motivational states in males, as well as gender differences in reward prediction, learning reward values and cognitive state during computer video games. These gender differences may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become "hooked" on video games than females. \copyright2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Epic Games provides a free game level editor with titles based on its Unreal engine. The editor provides a rich set of authoring tools that can be used to create fully interactive environments. This paper describes a tool that converts Unreal levels to web-ready environments in VRML and X3D, The paper also examines the similarities between first-person-shooter games and web 3D worlds, and discusses the implications of having a low-cost, fully featured virtual world authoring environment available for creating web 3D content.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
In this paper a semiotic approach to video games will be presented. Structuralist semiotic notion of text will be crit-icized for being unable to account for the nonlinear and un-stable nature of interactive ludic objects, and Rastier's [9] paradigm will be adopted. Integrating it with recent pro-posals in semantic of perception [4], a sketch for a semantic and semiotic analytic methodology for computer games will be outlined. Such methodology will be field-tested on the computer game flOw [1].
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